A system that reveals all the instruments and inner details clearly can sound better than live music in these ways, much like a 4K TV looks sharper and more colorful than reality, but lacks the expansive presence of being there. A room system also cannot provide that overwhelming sensory experience of being there, but it should not be expected to. I enjoy them both as an in-home experience that can impress me in ways that being there cannot.
Sound, neutrality and the pursuit of everything
The audiophile hobby is inherently a pursuit of some ideal. That ideal might differ from person to person, but what I am curious about is how each of us define that ideal.
I kinda like where my system is at. I cue a well recorded track and think: damn that sounds good. But compared to what? Do I have a point of comparison to the original performance, the day it was recorded? Usually not. To use an overused album, unless I was sitting at the Olympia concert hall in Paris when Diana Krall performed there in 2001 and have a perfect auditory memory, how do I know my system if reproducing it with “fidelity”?
If the pursuit of perfection is useless as perfection is an illusion, how do you all define your level of satisfaction or achievement in this audiophile pursuit?
I kinda like where my system is at. I cue a well recorded track and think: damn that sounds good. But compared to what? Do I have a point of comparison to the original performance, the day it was recorded? Usually not. To use an overused album, unless I was sitting at the Olympia concert hall in Paris when Diana Krall performed there in 2001 and have a perfect auditory memory, how do I know my system if reproducing it with “fidelity”?
If the pursuit of perfection is useless as perfection is an illusion, how do you all define your level of satisfaction or achievement in this audiophile pursuit?